McCue praised Elsbernd's efforts, which raised awareness and opened wallets for this organization, founded by the late Janet Pomeroy.

"Sean helped us reach across 19th Avenue and connected us to the rest of the city," he toasted. "Which is crucial because we serve every ZIP code in San Francisco."

Not only does the Pomeroy Recreation & Rehabilitation Center serve 2,000 clients weekly, but it also provides respite overnights for parents and a swimming pool (open to the public) maintained at a tropical 93 degrees.

Mary Flynn knows well the center's warmth because her 16-year-old daughter, Fiona Flynn, began as a client at age 7.

"PRRC was a godsend for our family and where Fiona experienced so many firsts: her first computer, language development, field trips and friendships," said her mom, a bit tearfully. "It allows me to work and worry less. At the Pomeroy center, you'll never see love like that."

"In my second year, I traveled to Africa to find my dad, whom I never met, in Nigeria," said the Southern California native last week at a W Hotel reception before the joyful Contemporary Jewish Museum opening of his first major S.F. exhibition, "The World Stage: Israel."

"Kehinde was influenced by such portraitists as Thomas Gainsborough," Tsujimoto explained. "But he incorporates classicism as a window on the black diaspora and street culture, portraying hip-hop artists and Ethiopian rappers with a hyperrealism and references to Judaic art."

Wiley's Nigerian trip also imbued the African American artist with a different kind of "blackness."

"A lot of the themes in my work, which encompass being on the periphery of systems, stem from that," he said. "The idea of nationhood, gender and sexuality are all at play. And that began here in San Francisco."